I just wanted to contribute my solution to remotely rebooting a Netgear R7000P NightHawk Router (with latest version of firmware as of 06/09/2023 - "V1.3.3.154_10.1.86").

Based on the hints and suggestions in this forum I have crafted[hacked together  ;-) ] a very reliable shell script that I run on an old RPi-3 via cron to nightly reboot the router. (You may ask why am I rebooting this R7000P router, well after stupidly updating firmware to the latest version, the router has been getting into a very strange state and its web pages would no longer load or its internal webserver would just stop responding - it would still do its routing functions and even continue to operate as an OpenVPN server!).  So, I tried to downgrade back to the original version of firmware and the R7000P would not allow it. In a quick attempt to solve the issue, I just chose to reboot the device every morning at 4:56am!!!!  This seems to have worked...

The text of the script is here:
------------------------
#!/bin/sh
#
# Simple script to REBOOT the Netgear R7000P router via the commandline....
#
# This is based on various search results:
#  https://dev1galaxy.org/viewtopic.php?id=2293
#
#
# 06/09/2023
#
#

# Command to login and establish my unique transaction ID...
MyTxNId=`/usr/bin/wget --no-check-certificate  -O- -q --http-user admin --http-password YourPassword https://192.168.1.1/ADVANCED_home2.htm | grep "form action"|tr '=' ' ' | tr '"' ' ' | awk '{print $4}'`;

# The Transaction ID is defined by the R7000P router...
echo "My Ephemeral Transaction ID from the R7000P router is: "  $MyTxNId

echo " "
echo " "

# Now perform a HTTP POST operation to the "hidden" CGI and reboot the router...
echo "Now issuing the ReBoot command to the R7000P!"
/usr/bin/wget --no-check-certificate -q -O /dev/null --http-user admin --http-password YourPassword --post-data 'buttonSelect=2' https://192.168.1.1/newgui_adv_home.cgi?id=$MyTxNId

echo " "
echo " "

# The wait is like 5 to 7 minutes to reboot!!!!
echo "Now Wait A Few Minutes for the Router to ReBoot!!!!"

echo " "
echo " "
------------------------

Note: Substitute your actual IP address (and access method - HTTP or HTTPS) of the R7000P and replace the text "YourPassword" with whatever your password is for your device!!!!!!  Also, if you don't use HTTPS access, then you can eliminate the "--no-check-certificate" WGET option, it is used to prevent WGET from complaining about the self-signed SSL/TLS certificate from the R7000P router!

I hope this helps the next person that is trying to solve this reboot problem that Netgear should have incorporated into their firmware - like most other systems - or even better, support a SSH login to enable access the router's internal commandline environment!!!!

Enjoy!

bruno@thinkpad:~$ id=$(wget -O- --http-user admin --http-password password http://192.168.100.1/RouterStatus.htm | perl -lne '/id=([0-9]+)/ && print $1'); wget --http-user admin --http-password password --post-data 'buttonSelect=2' http://192.168.100.1/goform/RouterStatus?id="$id"

This is exactly the kind of elegant solution I was hoping to find.

Incidentally, the id is important. If I use a random number (with the correct number of digits) or an id that showed up before, it doesn't work.

I had no idea it would turn out to be this complicated, and not in a million years could I have figured this out without your tireless help and amazing skills. Thank you so much!

(BTW, both my modem and router are in hard-to-reach places. When I've had to reboot them, it's always been a huge hassle. Now I can just push a button on my phone and it all happens automatically!)

When checking the file again with more care, I realized that there is the hidden input field named buttonSelect. Thus that should be the name used in the post data. I.e., try using buttonSelect=2 instead of button=2.

Since both 1.htm and 2.htm are the same progress bar response, it suggests that the id number is not very important. Thus option 1 may well work with buttonSelect=2.

The complex, third, variant doesn't work at all as is, which is my fault. It should have -O- instead of -v; you will want the download of the inner wget to go to standard output, and piped to sed, which extracts the form action (with path and id) to be used by the outer wget.

Though the complex variant is only needed if the id number is important. If there also is a connection to the session cookie, the command might need to be made even more complex, so as to making the inner wget save the cookie, and the outer load it.

Yes, I had noticed the unexplained id=1232362831 parameter. It seems to be different each time, but it is not obvious what it is. I just ran the same command I ran in post #18 and this time it was id=1823045111, so it does not appear to be a timestamp.

I tried all three commands you suggested. While no errors were reported, none of the commands caused the modem to reboot. Here are the three commands and their terminal output, as well as the fetched file(s):

First command:

bruno@thinkpad:~$ wget --http-user admin --http-password password --post-data 'button=2' http://192.168.100.1/goform/RouterStatus?id=1232362831
--2018-08-12 19:58:22--  http://192.168.100.1/goform/RouterStatus?id=1232362831
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized
Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR CM400"
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 3558 (3.5K) [text/html]
Saving to: ‘RouterStatus?id=1232362831’

RouterStatus?id=123 100%[===================>]   3.47K  --.-KB/s    in 0s      

2018-08-12 19:58:22 (16.8 MB/s) - ‘RouterStatus?id=1232362831’ saved [3558/3558]

Fetched this.

Second command:

bruno@thinkpad:~$ wget --http-user admin --http-password password --post-data 'button=2' http://192.168.100.1/goform/RouterStatus?id=$(( $(date +%s) - 301751682))
--2018-08-12 19:59:08--  http://192.168.100.1/goform/RouterStatus?id=1232366666
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized
Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR CM400"
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 3558 (3.5K) [text/html]
Saving to: ‘RouterStatus?id=1232366666’

RouterStatus?id=123 100%[===================>]   3.47K  --.-KB/s    in 0s      

2018-08-12 19:59:08 (91.2 MB/s) - ‘RouterStatus?id=1232366666’ saved [3558/3558]

Fetched this.

Third command:

bruno@thinkpad:~$ wget --http-user admin --http-password password --post-data 'button=2' http://192.168.100.1$(wget -v --http-user admin --http-password password http://192.168.100.1/RouterStatus.htm | sed '/action/ s/.*n="\([^"]*\).*/\1/')
--2018-08-12 20:08:19--  http://192.168.100.1/RouterStatus.htm
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized
Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR CM400"
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 50638 (49K) [text/html]
Saving to: ‘RouterStatus.htm’

RouterStatus.htm    100%[===================>]  49.45K  --.-KB/s    in 0.03s   

2018-08-12 20:08:19 (1.52 MB/s) - ‘RouterStatus.htm’ saved [50638/50638]

--2018-08-12 20:08:19--  http://192.168.100.1/
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized
Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR CM400"
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 52037 (51K) [text/html]
Saving to: ‘index.html’

index.html          100%[===================>]  50.82K  --.-KB/s    in 0.02s   

2018-08-12 20:08:19 (2.10 MB/s) - ‘index.html’ saved [52037/52037]

Fetched this and this.

wget --http-user admin --http-password password --post-data 'button=2' http://192.168.100.1/goform/RouterStatus?id=1232362831

However, that extra parameter id=1232362831 was generated for the page you saved, and it's not obvious how to make it up if it's different each time. It could possibly be a timestamp, if your modem's clock is off by 9 years or so. It might also be without special significance.

If it is a time stamp for an off clock, you'd generate a new one with something like  $(( $(date +%s) - 301751682))

If it is significant, you will need to first get the page (as you did), and then pick the form action from it (e.g. with sed). You would then put these two wget together into a single command line like the following (where back-slash is immediately followed by new-line), perhaps:

wget --http-user admin --http-password password --post-data 'button=2' \
    http://192.168.100.1$(wget -v --http-user admin --http-password password \
       http://192.168.100.1/RouterStatus.htm | sed '/action/ s/.*n="\([^"]*\).*/\1/')

On the other hand, since your method works, you might as well keep that.

First, I noticed that typing "http://192.168.100/RouterStatus.htm" in my webbrowser takes me directly to the page on the modem with the Reboot button.

Then, I tried this wget command and noticed that after initial "401 Unauthorized" error, authentication succeeds:

bruno@thinkpad:~$ wget -v --http-user admin --http-password password "http://192.168.100.1/RouterStatus.htm"
--2018-08-12 16:19:17--  http://192.168.100.1/RouterStatus.htm
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 401 Unauthorized
Authentication selected: Basic realm="NETGEAR CM400"
Connecting to 192.168.100.1:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 50638 (49K) [text/html]
Saving to: ‘RouterStatus.htm’

RouterStatus.htm    100%[===================>]  49.45K  --.-KB/s    in 0.03s   

2018-08-12 16:19:17 (1.68 MB/s) - ‘RouterStatus.htm’ saved [50638/50638]

If you'd like to see what "RouterStatus.htm" looks like, it is here.

The missing piece is to add something to the command that sends the appropriate button press. Any ideas?

I gave up finding the Reboot button the "proper" way. For the step where Reboot button is pressed, I decided to cheat and use xdotool to simply click at the button's coordinates on the screen. So this is the kludge of a script I came up with to reboot my modem from the command line:

#!/usr/bin/python

from selenium import webdriver
import time
import os

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get('http://admin:password@192.168.100.1/')
time.sleep(5)
alert = browser.switch_to_alert()
alert.accept()
time.sleep(5)
advancedTab = browser.find_element_by_link_text('ADVANCED')
advancedTab.click()
time.sleep(5)
os.system('xdotool mousemove --sync 650 420; xdotool click --repeat 1 --delay 125 1')
time.sleep(5)
alert = browser.switch_to_alert()
alert.accept() 

I find my solution ugly to the point of being offensive, but it will tide me over until I find something better--an excursion into wget is definitely in order. If I discover something elegant, I'll make sure to post it here.

Other than that, I think I'm out of ideas (well, suggesting an excursion with wget, perhaps, which also is cookie capable).

#!/usr/bin/python

import time
from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get('http://admin:password@192.168.100.1/')
time.sleep(5)
alert = browser.switch_to_alert()
alert.accept()
time.sleep(5)
advancedTab = browser.find_element_by_xpath('/html/body/table/tbody/tr/td[2]/table[2]/tbody/tr/td/ul/li[2]/a/span')
advancedTab.click()
time.sleep(5)
rebootButon = browser.find_element_by_xpath('/html/body/form[1]/div/div/div/table/tbody/tr[1]/td/div/div[1]/table/tbody/tr/td/table/tbody/tr[10]/td/button[2]')
rebootButton.click()

This script gets me to the second screenshot in post #7. It then gets stuck at the next to last line because while the Reboot button is clearly visible to me (I can hover over it, view its attributes, copy its xpath and, of course, manually click it if I want), selenium cannot find the Reboot button. I tried many of the browser's find_element_by_* methods, trying to match on all of the button's attributes I could think of. There must be something very strange about how the modem's web interface was put together. Any ideas, or should I ask in a python/selenium forum?

P.S. I did some searches on how to trigger an onclick function (advButtonClick(2) in this case) in selenium without actually clicking the button, and did not find anything.

Wow, ralph.ronnquist, you know your stuff.

He is a digital ninja.

There are a lot of tips in your post. Hopefully somewhere in this treasure trove I will find the answer. I'll try different things based on your guidance and will report back when I hit a snag or find a solution.

(Incidentally, I never thought the answer to my question would be so complicated. On the one hand it is stressful. On the other hand, it forces me to learn some new things.)

Secondly about the URL. You will need to look into the HTML for the first <form .. action=...> and make note of its action. If that is a relative path, it would be appended to /goform. Thereafter you need to add the query parameter ?bbb=3, although that bbb you will find as the name of the button in the form. Or try with ?buttonSelect=3 (although that looks too easy). Also, if the form method is "POST" you may need to make it all a POST request rather, and then the query parameter would be added into the "data" part.

function advButtonClick(index){

    if(index==0) // Show Statistics
        openStatisticsWindow();
    else if(index==1)
    {    
        openStatusWindow();
		// document.forms[0].buttonSelect.value="1";
    }
    else if(index==2)
    {
        if(confirm("Rebooting the gateway will disrupt active traffic on the network. Are you sure?"))
        {
            document.forms[0].buttonSelect.value="2";
            document.forms[0].submit(document.forms[0]);
        }
    }
	else if (index==3)
	{
		if(confirm("Loading the factory default settings will erase all the current settings. Are you sure?"))
        {
            document.forms[0].buttonSelect.value="3";
            document.forms[0].submit(document.forms[0]);
        }
	}
}

If anyone knows how to trigger the reboot function (including authenticating and answering in the affirmative the "are you sure?" question) from the command line, I would buy you a case of beer I'm totally stuck at this point, as I know relatively little about web design and, besides, I don't understand why curl fails to authenticate given that the username and password are definitely correct.